Christmas caroling meets "flash mobbing"

If you invite everybody to show up and spontaneously sing the Hallelujah Chorus, there's no telling what can happen.

Folks have been Christmas caroling for centuries. It’s a fun tradition.

Just get a few friends and their kids together and go stand in the freezing cold of your neighbors’ lawns. Send an eight-year-old up to knock on the door and start singing Hark the Herald, The First Noel, Away in a Manger, Silent Night and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Carolling can be a lot of fun

You will be astonished at the reaction. Elderly folks may brush away tears — and tell you how they used to go caroling with their loved ones during the Great Depression. Younger families may not know quite what to do — as their kids gawk in wonder.

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But Christmas caroling has taken a new twist — as choirs and community groups give surprise concerts at their local shopping malls and department stores. Sometimes church choirs just decide to show up at the same time.

Other times the word is put out on the Internet — everybody practice something like “Joy to the World” — and we’ll meet you at

Sears on Main Street at noon Saturday.

It can be a lot of fun.

In this video, we get sort of an “Occupy” twist. Drummers showed up along with folks who had practiced the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah … and the result is, well, interesting.